


Midnight Walks

by Nerdgirl001



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Surreal, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 06:23:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11075850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerdgirl001/pseuds/Nerdgirl001
Summary: Scully finds herself caught between two worlds, unsure which is the truth.





	1. Chapter 1

She walks to give her heart a reason to beat faster, to give her legs a reason to move, to give her hands a reason to shake. She slips through the night unseen and unheard as the rest of the world waits to pounce. 

She's done something but she can't remember what. The road she takes is familiar to her feet but crushing to her heart. The aching feeling that she is letting him down burns a hole through her. She forces her self to turn, and wanders until she is once again lost. The road is dark and cold, she walks until the sun begins to rise. She finds herself in the doorway of three familiar faces. They look upon her with fear and concern and she wants to run, to scream. 

They bring her inside and ask her strange questions. She tries to respond but her features remain expressionless. She tries to move but her body remains rigid. She stares straight ahead, vision going blurry from the blood. There is so much of it and it runs so thickly down. Her senses tell her that it is old, and it is not hers. 

The world goes black.

_She's running, the fear pounding in her heart only making her legs pump faster._

She startles awake and nearly takes out the man leaning over her, peering down into her eyes. He jumps and moves away, only to slowly move back to his original position. 

She knows him. She is sure she does. He knows her. That much is certain. He speaks calmly and softly. His tone is full of worry and pain. She turns away from him though he is still talking, the room appears full. 

The people she found are standing at the foot of her bed, uncomfortable. The short one keeps an eye on her and the man next to her, and has a protective stance for the two standing slightly behind him. The tall one looks upset until the last places a hand secretly on his back. They are now all staring back at her, a glimmer of hope stirring among them. Her eyes now travel past them and onto the left side of the bed. The man behind her is still talking. 

She sees a woman she has only seen once or twice before. She is pretty and standing alone, but close enough to the boys to make their connection apparent. The woman does not meet her eye. 

Lastly the man sitting directly to her left makes her heart jump. This was the one she almost lost. Or maybe he is the one who lost her. He looks upset, and so very sorry. He is hurt. She notices a pressure on her hand and bends her neck slightly to see what it is. The man's hand is holding hers. It is warm and comforting although she is unsure why. He is saying something again and again, but she cannot tell what it is that he wants.

Her eyes do not focus on him and she realizes that he is not there. She blinks and he is gone with her heart. 

_She is standing still. The world turns around her. His body is laid out below her, bloodied and broken. She can feel the hot tears streaming down her cheeks, but the numbness is already forming within her._

_This can't be real. This can't be real._

The room is now empty. Those who care for her having given up hope, or maybe they're just trying to find some. Maybe they were never there at all. 

She closes her eyes and tries to remember but the pain is near unbearable. Nothing makes sense. Not the bits and peices of memory swimming around her, not the light nor the dark nor the sound.The world crumbles for a moment into darkness, into mayhem. 

_The man is gasping and reaching out for her. She tries to help him but something or someone is holding her back._

She closes her eyes and sinks back down into the reality of the world around her. The bed beneath her, the sheets surrounding her, the steady hum of machinery. 

His voice rings out and she gasps and opens her eyes. He is standing next to her bed, saying sweet calming things to her. He smiles down at her and sits, calmly running his fingers through her hair she smiles and drifts again into oblivion. 

_The yelling doesn't stop. The screams are interminable. Her voice is hoarse but still she cries out. His voice is barely audible, but it calls back to her. She doesn't know how to escape, how to get him free, but she is sure if she doesn't soon that they both will die._

She is awake. Fully and completely awake. This place feels real. It feels complete. It makes sense. The beeping of the machines that she is connected to sound like she remembers them to. It looks complete, like every other hospital room she's ever been him. She rests but does not allow herself to fall asleep, the nightmares have been tormenting her more than usual. Every time she closes her eyes for more then a moment she is transported to her own personal hell. 

She is now able to sit up and the pain subsides more and more. The older man who had been speaking to her earlier walks into the room and smiles at her. He comments about her health, he sounds happy to see her doing better. He calls to the doorway and the other man walks in, he is smiling too. She doesn't understand why comprehension is escaping her, but she has a suspicion it has something to do with the bandage wound around her head. 

_A jabbing at her side gives her the ability to focus. On what she is not sure. Everything is going fuzzy, the world around her, the memories of what she is fighting and who she is fighting for._

Everything that surrounds her is nice and warm and comforting. It seems as though her brain has swelled due to some injury that has caused the aphasia she's been experiencing. That's the only reasonable explanation she can find.

The younger man is sitting in the chair next to her, she smiles up at him and he leans down close to her. She's about to allow her eyes to flutter closed when a feeling of horror takes hold of her. 

She jerks away from him and gets her first good look at that man who is supposed to be Mulder. His eyes are black and dimensionless, and his features appear to have melted partially, leaving behind a horrifying vision of her partner. 

Scully screams and with her next blink transports her mind back to her _real_ body. She pulls against the organic material holding her and breaks its hold on her.

"Mulder!" She yells at the top of her lungs. 

"S-scully." A small voice comes from a few feet ahead of her. 

Running to him as soon as she sees him, it takes her moments to break him free of his encampment. 

Mulder smiled up at her and with as much of a laugh as he can muster says, "I told you we should have turned left."

"I can leave you here, ya know." Scully informs him as she lifts him to his feet.

"In all our years together, Scully, how many times have I been wrong?" He says as they begin to climb their way out of the hell hole they'd fallen into. 

With a sigh, Scully answers "more times than I can count, Mulder." Then, with a shrug "but not with directions." 

"That's right." He says as though he won the argument.


	2. Case Report

The Irreplaceable Bulb-

Sunday April 16th at around 7:30pm I, agent Scully, badge number JTTO331613, received a call from agent Mulder instructing me to meet him at the office for a very important case ~~and coffee~~.

When I arrived at the office I discovered that agent Mulder, ~~having forgotten my coffee~~ having appeared to not have left the office since I last saw him at 5:15, had prepared a slide show of the phenomenon that he felt was worth looking into. Upon further investigation it appeared as though the case hinged on a lightbulb that had been glowing, without electricity, for six years.

After some discussion as to whether or not this case warranted an investigation, it was decided that we would pick up the trail in the morning ~~so that we both could get some much needed sleep~~. 

In the morning, ~~and I'm only saying morning in the technical sense~~ at a little after midnight I received another call from agent Mulder. Having done some more research into the case ~~I can only assume~~ , he felt as though it was necessary to get a head start on the day and was waiting outside my apartment to pick me up. 

On our way to the house with the mysterious lightbulb, which upon later review turned out to be connected to electricity and changed on a regular basis, ~~we made an incorrect turn due to the fact that I had not slept more than 3 consecutive hours in the past four days~~ we ended up taking the wrong exit and drove until we came to the end of the road. 

At this point agent Mulder exited the vehicle and began walking into the surrounding wilderness, claiming to have seen strange movement in the bushes. I ~~yelled at him to get back into the car before I~~ followed him as close as I was able, however, soon enough he was out of my eye sight.

At this point my perception of events became untrustworthy as I underwent some form of hallucination causing me to believe that I was in a hospital. From what I can piece together from this reality I wandered a little farther, calling out for agent Mulder, until I heard him yell. I ran toward the sound, however still did not have any sight of my partner. I soon discovered, by falling into the same trap myself, that agent Mulder had become trapped in an underground cavern. 

When I discovered agent Mulder, he appeared to have been injured though by what I was not aware. ~~Mulder claims to have stumbled upon a strange life form having the ability to take over the minds of whomever is close to it~~ Though agent Mulder has his own explanation as to what happened, it seems now that he broke his leg in the fall and got a concussion upon impact. 

As I attempted to help agent Mulder I felt something holding me back, again, I am unsure if this was due to the hallucinations I was undergoing or if in fact a creature was there with us. 

At this point I began to believe in the other reality I was experiencing more than this one. Agent Mulder describes a similar alternate reality to the one I experienced during this time. I am unsure as to how much time elapsed in which I was absorbed by these hallucinations, but after some indeterminant time I was able to determine which reality was in fact real. 

Agent Mulder and I were both able to escape with only a few injuries. I was able to get a preliminary cast on Mulder's leg before we got back into the car. We soon arrived at a hospital, but found that neither of us were able to recall anything about the journey there or the path back to the place we had just been.

Although these events may seem fantastical, under a microscope and looked at through scientific reasoning, it can be understood that hallucinogens are very real in this world. Whether or not these hallucinogens were used as chemical warfare by forces as of yet unknown to the majority of our species, as Agent Mulder ~~would~~ may suggest, I cannot say. What I can say is that we were able to escape due to the fact that the hallucinogens were unable to make a complete view of our world as, although the places we were transported to were warm and comforting, the devil is in the details.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shameless self promotion*
> 
> If any of you are fans of Welcome to Night Vale, stay tuned for my next work, a joint effort with a friend at an X-Files/Night Vale crossover!


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